"But for the present," - I said as soon as I could speak. "I
am sure our chance for the future is better if we are patient
and wait now."
"Patient, and wait?" said Mr. Thorold. "If we are patient now?
What do you mean by patience? You in Switzerland, with half a
hundred suitors by turns; and I here in the smoke of artillery
practice, unable to see twenty yards from my drill - and that,
you think, does not call for patience, but you must cut off
the post-office from our national institutions. And to wait
for you is not enough, but I must wait for news of you as
well!"
"Christian!" said I, in desperation - "it is harder for me
than for you."
He laughed at that; laughed and looked at me, and his eyes
sparkled like a shower of fireworks, and then I was sure that
a mist was gathering in them. I could scarcely bear the one
thing ands the other. My own composure failed. He did not this
time answer by caresses. He got up and paced the turf a little
distance below me; his arms folded, his lips set, and the
steps never slackening. So he was when I could look up and
see. This was worse than anything. And the sun was lowering
fast, and we had settled nothing, and our time was going. I
waited a minute, and then I called him. He came and stood
before me, face and attitude unchanged.
"Christian," I said, - "don't you see that it is best - my
plan?"
"No," he said.
I did not know what to urge next. But as I looked at him, his
lips unbent and his face shone down at me, after a sort, with
love, and tenderness and pleasure. I felt I had not prevailed
yet. I rose up and stood before him.
"Indeed it is best!" I said earnestly.
"What do you fear, Daisy?" His look was unchanged and feared
nothing. It was very hard to tell him what I feared.
"I think, without seeing you and knowing you, they will never
let us write; and I would rather they did not know anything
about the - about us - till you can see them."
He took both my hands in his, and I felt how hard it is for a
woman to move a man's will when it is once in earnest.
"Daisy, that is not brave," he said.
"No - I am not," I answered. "But is it not prudent?"
"I do not believe in cowardly prudence," he said; but he
kissed me gently to soften the words; "the frank way is the
wisest, always, I believe; and anyhow, Daisy, I can't stand
any other. I am going to ask you of your father and mother;
and I am going to do it without delay."